s had ornamental friezes with
lower portions of the walls panelled, and the bedrooms of ladies of
position began to be more luxuriously furnished.

It is somewhat singular that while Normandy very quickly adopted the new
designs in her buildings and her furniture, and Rouen carvers and joiners
became famous for their work, the neighbouring province, Brittany, was
conservative of her earlier designs. The sturdy Breton has through all
changes of style preserved much of the rustic quaintness of his furniture,
and when some three or four years ago the writer was stranded in a
sailing trip up the Ranee, owing to the shallow state of the river, and
had an opportunity of visiting some of the farm houses in the country
district a few miles from Dinan, there were still to be seen many examples
of this quaint rustic furniture. Curious beds, consisting of shelves for
parents and children, form a cupboard in the wall and are shut in during
the day by a pair of lattice doors of Moorish design, with the wheel
pattern and spindle perforations. These, with the armoire of similar
design, and the "huche" or chest with relief carving, of a design part
Moorish, part Byzantine, used as a step to mount to the bed and also as a
table, are still the _garniture_ of a good farm house in Brittany.

The earliest date of this quaint furniture is about the middle of the
fifteenth century, and has been handed down from father to son by the more
well-to-do farmers. The manufacture of armoires, cupboards, tables and
doors, is still carried on near St. Malo, where also some of the old
specimens may be found.

[Illustration: Louis XIII. And His Court in a Hall, Witnessing a Play.
(_From a Miniature dated_ 1643.)]

[Illustration: Decoration for a Salon in Louis XIII. Style.]

The Renaissance in the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, the reigning princes of the great House of Burgundy
had prepared the soil for the Renaissance, and, by the marriage of Mary of
Burgundy with the Archduke Maximilian, the countries which then were
called Flanders and Holland, passed under the Austrian rule. This
influence was continued by the taste and liberality of Margaret of
Austria, who, being appointed "Governor" of the Low Countries in 1507,
seems to have introduced Italian artists and to have encouraged native
craftsmen. We are told that Corneille Floris introduced Italian
ornamentation and grotesque borders; that Pierre Coech, architect and
painter, adopted